Devils and Dust
by yallaintright
Summary: A World War II story. (Or, A Book Thief AU that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike The Book Thief.) E/R
1. Chapter 1

**Warnings**: Consider this an umbrella warning for anything WWII-related. There's angst, non-graphic violence, vague descriptions of concentration camps, minor character deaths and probably other things that I'm forgetting to add.

He'd had a chance to kill Hitler, once. It's such a funny thing to think of now; how the entire history of the world could have been changed forever if Enjolras had known then what he knows now. But he was but a small child then, barely ten years-old, terribly young and naive, clutching his father's hand at a secret meeting such a young boy should not be attending as he looked up at a man with a mesmerizing voice that carried the promise of a brighter tomorrow and made patriotic pride that Enjolras did not yet fully understand stir inside him.

It's easy now, so easy, to look back at all that happened during those horribly long years and see Hitler for what he truly was - a megalomaniac killer who would go on to murder millions of people - but back then he had burnt like the sun and all of Germany had been drawn to him like moths to a flame.

It was the summer of 1923 and Enjolras had been just as drawn to the man, equal parts hypnotized and fascinated, and completely unable to tear his eyes away. It would last only for three months, for November would come and with it Hitler would try to start a revolution from a beer Hall in Munich and sixteen of his followers would be killed.

Enjolras' father would be one of those sixteen.

After that cold day, Enjolras would often think back to his first time meeting the Führer, when he could've reached for the gun he knew his father kept at the small of his back, point it at Hitler and pull the trigger before anyone in the room could stop him.

It's unfathomable, sometimes, to think back to what is and to what could've been if he'd done it. To consider how many lives would've been spared, how the warmth of his father's hand might be more than a half-forgotten memory. Enjolras could have become so much more than the broken, beaten man he is today. He had burnt once, too, not unlike Hitler — though love, rather than hatred, had been his driving fuel. He'd spoken against the Nazis in front of enraptured crowds and thousands of people had been just as enthralled by his voice as millions would later be by Hitler's, hanging on to every sound pouring out of his mouth. There has always been a terrible power to words, and Enjolras had wielded it then with a careless ease that had been born with him and no books could have taught him.

Hitler's words had been the ones to start a war and bring half a continent to its knees, slaughtering millions of people in the process. Enjolras had hoped, in the beginning, that his words could be the ones that would stop it.

But that had been then. Now, it has been three years since the war ended and not a single word has made its way past Enjolras' lips since the first nuclear bomb hit Japan. What good are words when there is nothing left worth using them for?

"You're being an idiot," Grantaire would say. He'd reach for Enjolras across a darkened room, hands tugging at clothes and grasping at naked skin and Enjolras would smile against his will and let Grantaire kiss away the worried frown on his face.

"I knew I could make you speak," Grantaire would say later, smug grin plastered on his face after Enjolras had come shouting his name and they had collapsed against each other on Enjolras' bed, naked and spent.

"I love you," Grantaire would say, a soft caress whispered against the naked skin of Enjolras' neck; but Grantaire is long dead and there is no one left to coax the words out of him.

He isn't sure how it happens, exactly. He supposes his father's death is the shield, the armor that never lets him fall fully under the trance of the Führer's voice. In every single word that Hitler says, Enjolras thinks back to a time when his father had been promised greatness and delivered death instead. Hitler is not a God-Hitler is a man, and men tell lies.

He is ten and his father is dead and his mother makes sure he and his little sister grow up in a house where love prevails and there is no room for intolerance. There will never be Nazi propaganda inside those walls and he will not grow up dreaming of becoming like his father-his father had been weak and he had fallen under Hitler's spell and he had died. Instead, he wishes he can grow up like his mother, strong and loving and _good_. He knows that he is privileged — his mother comes from old money and he has wanted for nothing while growing up — and that sets him apart from most germans. Yet he will never hate his father, not even after the war is won and Enjolras is lost-his father lived in a country that had been ripped apart by war while its sons and daughters starved to death on the streets. His father tried to do good and he could not have known all that would come to pass once Hitler seized power. Enjolras doubts anyone could have, then-Hitler had shone brighter than anyone ever before at a time Germany had been the most desperate for light.

Hitler is arrested then, but his mother says it's not the end—only the beginning. Enjolras does not yet fully understand but hopes that she is wrong.

He is eleven and Hitler is released from prison, less than a year after his arrest. His mother does not speak for a week.

He is sixteen and the United States stock market collapses. Germany's economy, slowly trying to rebuild itself, threatens to implode. The people are starving again and he will always remember this as the moment Hitler's real rise to power begins.

He is eighteen and the Nazi party's power and influence keep growing. He dyes his hair jet black, renouncing his aryan heritage, and speaks against them loudly and clearly, for anyone who will listen. His mother has read him Mein Kampf; she has pointed out the signs that everyone else is so keen on dismissing-the obsession with one pure race, the loosely-implied threat of genocide. It will end in death, she says, and Enjolras believes her. He tells himself that words will be enough to make a difference.

He would laugh at himself now, if he could still laugh.

He is nineteen and Hitler loses the elections. He lets out a sigh of relief and lets himself believe that it's over.

He is twenty and Hitler is appointed as chancellor. Enjolras knows now that his mother had been right after Hitler's imprisonment-this is just the beginning.

He is twenty-one and he can no longer speak freely. What had once been the voices of hundreds joining his turns into secret meetings in badly-lit rooms and he can not be too careful. It is dangerous and slow work, and there is only so much pamphlets and whispered words can do. However, this is Nazi Germany and there is nothing else he _can _do-Enjolras would not mind dying for his country, but Germany does not need a martyr for what is a martyr to a saviour? Germany will follow Hitler, for now, and Enjolras will not die for nothing.

He is twenty-three and his sixteen-year old sister arrives home after a Nuremberg rally with a swollen belly. She is to be one of the Führer's Brides-young and unwed and pregnant with a "pure aryan baby". His sister has not heeded their mother's warning and no one is able to talk sense into her. She rages and screams at both of them and later Gestapo will come and take their mother away.

It is the last time Enjolras will see his mother alive-and it is the last time he will see his sister at all.

He is twenty-four and he meets Lamarque for the first time. She speaks of upcoming war and Enjolras feels that she is telling the truth-there is something in the air, a spark of anticipation and bitterness and he fears what will come to pass.

"You could help," Lamarque says. "If it happens-_when _it happens."

"I am helping," Enjolras says. "I am speaking out, I am—"

"That will not help enough. Spy against the Germans. Your father was a hero in Hitler's eyes. You will be welcomed back with open arms, you will be the prodigal son returning home."

"You are asking me to betray my country." He does not want to — he knows that if it comes to war his fellow countrymen will die and Germany will bleed — but already he knows it is the right choice. Still, for now he lets Lamarque tell him that.

"If it comes to war, your country will betray itself long before it is over. I am asking you not to betray mankind," she says.

"Innocent people will die," Enjolras replies. "Innocent people will die because of me."

Lamarque nods and Enjolras is grateful - he would not believe her if she had tried tried to tell him otherwise - truth and honesty are heavy burdens, even though they are welcome ones. "More innocent people will live, because of you."

She tells him he should infiltrate the SS. He has stopped dyeing his hair, and it now flows long and free and Enjolras hates everything that it stands for. He is welcomed back with open arms, just like Lamarque had predicted. If they remember his words, almost a decade ago, no one speaks a word of it-though they may not, photographs are blurry and his blond hair paints a different enough picture that no one will question it.

He is twenty-five and Germany invades Austria and Czechoslovakia. There are whispers of war brewing in the air and Lamarque is certain it is a matter of months, rather than years. Under her advice, he marries a girl with long brown hair and eyes the colour of melted chocolate.

Her name is Éponine and Enjolras does not love her but that is not important-like him, she is to be a spy, but unlike him she is poor. There are too many questions as to why Enjolras is unmarried and childless, questions that are not safe to answer in Nazi Germany-their marriage will put those questions to rest and a roof over her head.

It's a good arrangement for both of them and they both know it. The night after their wedding, once they are alone, she takes his hand and tells him that he will be the one sleeping on the couch. Enjolras shakes his head and points her to a room down the corridor.

She smiles, pats his cheek and says that she knew marrying him would be a good idea.

In the morning, he wakes up to freshly brewed coffee left outside his door. He thinks marrying her was a good idea as well.

A month later, he has a front row seat to what will be known throughout Europe as the Night of Broken Glass. He can do nothing but watch-war will begin soon and his loyalties must not be challenged. He is no good dead or incarcerated so he will play his part flawlessly and ignore the bitter taste in his mouth and the scream yearning to burst from his throat.

When he wakes up in the morning it is to Éponine's body pressed against his. They are not lovers and they will never be, but she is warm and she is alive and she is a friend and Enjolras appreciates the human contact. He kisses her temple as she snores softly and pads to the kitchen to make her coffee.

"So, it's begun," she says, once she is fully awake and sipping her coffee.

"It began long ago," Enjolras says bitterly. "And it will be years before it's over."

He is twenty-six and the world goes to war. He rises quickly up the ranks of the SS and does not like what he learns. Death is spreading quickly through Europe - but there is no place where it spreads as quickly as it does in the ever-growing number of concentration camps on german soil.

He does what he must to keep his cover: he harms the innocent and turns a blind eye to all forms of cruelty. He laughs at jokes that threaten to make his stomach turn and resists the urge to claw his eyes out. Enjolras' mission is important but his soul is not-he would like to be able to look in a mirror once the war is over, yet knows that he will not. Thousands have died and millions more will follow soon-life itself is a privilege, and it is one Enjolras does not expect to keep.

He is twenty-seven and there is a Jew in his basement.

"You owe me," Éponine says. "You needed a marriage more than I needed the money. _You owe me_, Enjolras. And he is my friend."

He had wanted to say no-Grantaire was but one man and there was enough talk about what was happening to Jews and the people who hid them across Germany. His is just one life, and Enjolras' position amongst the SS cannot be challenged or even questioned. Enjolras does not fear his own death and would gladly welcome Grantaire with open arms if all he had to worry about had been his own life. But people die everyday, and Enjolras' life may be able to stop it one day.

This is what he believes, this is what he knows to be true. He says as much to Éponine.

Her only response is to laugh in his face. "He is my friend," she repeats. "And you will say yes. Because if you don't, I will walk to the nearest SS officer and tell him everything I know about our spying. I am not bluffing, Enjolras."

"Éponine—"

"You owe me, Enjolras." Her words are a hiss, and for the first time she says his name like a curse, the same way she says Nazi or Hitler when they are alone and there is no one there to hear them.

"You would let millions of people burn for one man?"

"You owe me," she repeats again. "And I owe him."

He bows his head, knowing he is defeated. He tells her one more thing, before she leaves the room, "I hope he is worth it, your friend. If we lose the war for him."

"He is," she says simply and then she is gone.

He comes at night, a mop of dark curly hair on his head and bright blue eyes staring apologetically at Enjolras.

"I'm sorry," he — Grantaire — says with a bowed head. "I know it is not fair and it is not safe, but—"

"It's not your fault," Enjolras assures, because no matter what might happen because of this man he is not to blame for any of it.

He shows Grantaire their basement. It's damp and cold but it's the best he can do.

Later that night, Éponine slips quietly into his bed.

"There was a boy," she tells the crook of his neck. "A boy with a constellation of freckles on his face. I don't think he ever looked twice at me but I loved him. His name was Marius and he was Jewish."

Enjolras dreads the answer but knows that he must hear it. "What happened?"

"Two months ago, some friends were going to sneak him out of Germany, along with Grantaire. But something happened along the way and there was only one spot left. It should've been Grantaire, but he gave up his seat so that Marius could leave."

"And Marius…?"

"In America, last I heard." She chuckles sadly, before continuing, "He's going to marry a lovely American girl. It's not important."

"What's important is Grantaire?"

"Maybe—" she pauses and bites her lip, looking for the right words. "We see so much cruelty every day while we stand by and do nothing in the name of our damned covers and it's not—" Another pause, while she shifts on the bed. "It's not easy and it shouldn't be but maybe if nothing else matters, small acts of kindness will. For my sanity, if nothing else."

"If they find him—"

"We will die," she says matter-of-factly. No point pretending they don't both know the punishment for hiding a Jew. "But if they are to search this house, Grantaire will be the least of our problems."

She is right-there is too much information hiding inside those walls and beneath those floorboards. Too much radio equipment that neither of them can explain. If Grantaire is found, death will be their worst punishment. If it is proof of their treason that they find, death will be the best thing they have to look forward to.

"It's more dangerous with him here," he says, because they both must hear the truth. "I just don't understand why, Éponine."

"Grantaire was always the best out of all of us," she says, shrugging her thin shoulders like it's an answer, and maybe it is.

He dreams of Grantaire's eyes that night - and that is a question he cannot afford to know the answer to.

He is twenty-eight and he is in love.

It's another one of those things that Enjolras does not fully understand-Grantaire is idiotic and he is obnoxious and he is a liability and yet Enjolras often finds himself thinking he is the only good thing left in a world that has lost all semblance of the humanity it once had.

The most ridiculous thing is that it starts with hair. Grantaire's hair, to be more precise.

"I should get a haircut," Grantaire says late one evening, after Éponine is asleep and Enjolras has slipped down to the basement to keep him company. Neither of them sleep that well anymore, and collapsing into bed exhausted is probably the best way to ensure a decent night's sleep.

Enjolras snorts, but makes Grantaire sit down in a chair all the same and grabs a pair of scissors.

He stands behind him, grabbing a fistful of soft inky-black hair and has to resist the urge to bury his face in it. "I like your hair," he says, before he can stop himself. It's true-he likes Grantaire's hair and he likes Grantaire's hands and he likes Grantaire's voice and he likes Grantaire's eyes and he likes Grantaire's wit and he likes Grantaire's _everything _and that is a problem he has not planned for.

Grantaire shrugs. "It's getting too shaggy for my tastes."

At Enjolras' frown he adds, "Honestly, one of these days you won't have to worry about the weird man in your basement anymore-just put a bow around my neck and introduce me to people as a very misbehaved poodle. I can guarantee everyone will fall for it."

Enjolras finds himself laughing against his will-the image of Grantaire with a bow is too ridiculous for him not to. "You'd just bite everyone," he says. "And probably destroy my shoes just to spite me."

Grantaire snorts. "It's cute, really, that you think I don't already destroy your shoes when you're not looking. Don't look at me like that, you do have terrible taste in shoes."

"I like how you didn't say anything about biting people, though."

"I am offended," Grantaire says around a chuckle. "I would only bite _you_. And only if you asked _really _nicely."

There's a pause and he takes in a sharp breath of air, clearly just realizing what he's said. "I'm sorry, Enjolras. I shouldn't have said that, that was—"

Enjolras' hands leave Grantaire's hair of their own accord and his traitorous feet make him stand in front of Grantaire.

Grantaire looks down, refusing to meet his eyes. Enjolras sighs, a hand reaching out for Grantaire's shoulder and another tilting his chin up.

"This is cruel, Enjolras," Grantaire's voice breaks mid-speech and he has to take a calming breath before speaking once more. "Unless you're going to kiss me, this is cruel and—"

"I _am _going to kiss you," Enjolras says and does so.

Grantaire does not say it is cruel anymore. In fact, he does not speak for a very long time, though Enjolras supposes it is very hard to speak coherently when you're slowly moving inside someone else.

Éponine doesn't say anything the next morning, just leaves two cups of coffee out instead of one and makes sure their curtains stay drawn a little longer.

From then on, Grantaire sleeps in Enjolras' bed every night. It's probably too risky, but the basement is damp and cold and Enjolras will not risk everything for Grantaire only to lose him to pneumonia.

Months pass and he is invited to visit a concentration camp for the first time, to see Hitler's 'noble work' first hand. Already he knows more than the rest of Germany about what is happening there and though he wants nothing more than to say no, he knows there is no plausible way for him to reject the offer.

He feigns laughter and feigns smiles and feigns pride in all that he sees, until he wonders if there's anything left in him that's even real at all. The prisoners do not look at him for kindness or even an apology-their starving eyes demand nothing but an explanation and that is just another thing Enjolras can not give them.

Once, when he was very young, Enjolras had thought that Hitler was like the sun. Now, as he stares vacantly at the smoke shrouding the chimneys emerging from the camp, he thinks that this is what Hitler truly is-he is the smoke rising from burnt corpses and he is the lingering smell of death in the air that Enjolras will feel every day for the rest of his life. This is what it comes down to, in the end-thousands, maybe millions of people dead and more to follow, all because Germany had watched Hitler but had not seen and it had heard him but had not listened. Ignorance is not an apology — at this stage Enjolras doesn't fool himself into believing there is any way they will ever be able to apologize for all that has happened — but it is an explanation, even though it solves nothing and does not bring back the dead.

He does not weep then and he does not break and beg for forgiveness-but that night is the first of many where Grantaire will do nothing but hold him as broken sobs wreck his body.

He gains power in the SS-people have always been drawn to him and even Nazis are no exception. He lies and he cheats and passes every scrap of information he possibly can to the Allies without even thinking about it.

This is also the year that Germany loses the war — not officially, and certainly not as far as the fighting and death are concerned — but it is the year that Hitler chooses to invade Russia and the German army fails spectacularly.

He does not grieve for them, even though he knows most of the lives lost are innocent ones who had sought only to fight for their country. It does not matter-Hitler must be stopped no matter the cost. It seems only fitting that it's the freezing cold that's the beginning of the end for the Nazis, when they have always been so eager to light fires.

For the first time he can remember, death makes him happy-it was only a matter of time, he tells himself, and it's better it happens now than when there is nothing left to burn.

He is aware that through it all Grantaire is the one who keeps him together. Grantaire is the one who is hiding, Grantaire is the one who is hunted, Grantaire is the one who is threatened every single day by the Nazi regime-yet Grantaire is the one who is stronger, Grantaire is the one who kisses love and life and humanity back into Enjolras. It's Grantaire's warm arms wrapped tight around Enjolras' waist and Grantaire's warm chest pressed to Enjolras' back that let him stay human through it all.

Grantaire is strong and Enjolras is weak and Enjolras knows this-this is why Grantaire must leave.

"You could go to Portugal," he whispers, late one night when Berlin has gone to sleep and they are lying on his bed (though it's really their bed now) and so tangled up in each other he can't possibly say where he ends and Grantaire begins. Portugal is a good choice-England is more accepting, more welcoming towards Jews, but England is being bombed as well. He will not save Grantaire from the Nazi death camps to lose him to Nazi bombs. If the worst is to happen, England will fall long before Portugal does. "It would be safe for you, there. I could get you safe passage. It'd be hard, but God knows I am owed enough favors already."

Grantaire snorts, before laying a trail of kisses on Enjolras' jaw. "Whatever would I do in Portugal?"

"Feel the sun warming your back, the wind tousling your hair. Taste the rain on your tongue. You would _live_." Enjolras does not beg, does not even ask for things most of the time, but he is begging now, urging Grantaire to leave. He will do it as many times as he can, slid easily down to his knees in front of Grantaire and plead against the soft skin of his stomach.

There are hands in his hair before Grantaire replies, "But what is the sun compared to your hair?" A kiss on his knuckles. "What is the wind compared to your hands?" Another kiss, softer and more tentative, pressed to his lips. "What is the rain compared to your mouth?"

"Only the difference between life and death, Grantaire." He looks up at bright blue eyes, the colour of the morning sky, and fears that he is fighting a losing battle. If his life had been his own, Enjolras thinks he would have been glad to die for those eyes. He would have dragged Grantaire kicking and screaming to the safest place he could find, shielded Grantaire's body with his own and protected him from everyone who would dare try to hurt him. But it is not-he is a tool of the Allies and the information only he can give them has saved hundred of lives and may one day win them the war. He is not a man, he is a weapon in a war that has reaped millions of lives and his desires must never be allowed to come first.

Grantaire is strong and Enjolras is weak and Grantaire knows this-this is why he stays.


	2. Chapter 2

**Warnings**: Consider this an umbrella warning for anything WWII-related. There's angst, genocide, vague descriptions of concentration camps, minor character death, violence, PTSD, depression, suicidal thoughts, assisted suicide, murder, death marches and blood.

He is twenty-nine and Grantaire is gone.

It's not a bad year, at first—news of Germany's failure in Russia keeps spreading, and Enjolras lets himself believe that it will be over soon; that the death and slaughter will end and Grantaire will not have to hide anymore.

He tells Grantaire as much one night. It's late, and Enjolras feels old down to his bones, but Grantaire is there and he is alive and the war may be over soon—it will be enough, for now.

"Maybe," Grantaire says, playing with a stray blond curl at the nape of Enjolras' neck. Enjolras is lying half on the bed and half on top of Grantaire, head pillowed on the other man's chest as Grantaire plays idly with his hair. It strikes Enjolras as odd that even amidst all the death and destruction, this is the happiest he ever remembers being.

"Or maybe not," Grantaire continues. "But it will end, eventually. All wars do."

Enjolras can feel Grantaire's heartbeat beneath him and Grantaire's breath ruffling his hair when he tilts his head down to press a kiss to Enjolras' temple. He feels loved and lighter than he has any right to be, cradled here in the safety of Grantaire's arms. It's the thought that makes him speak, makes him voice his own fears.

"And the innocent always die," Enjolras pauses and bites his lip. "Some of them by my own hands. The things I've done, Grantaire-"

Grantaire shushes him, tilts Enjolras' head up only to press a soft kiss to the tip of his nose. "One question, just answer yes or no. Do you want Germany to lose this war?"

"How can you even-"

"Yes or no, Enjolras."

"_Yes_. Of course it's yes. But I don't-"

Grantaire shifts, rolls them over so that's he's lying on top of Enjolras, his hands on either side of Enjolras' head supporting most of his weight. "Don't," he breathes out. "Don't you dare do this to yourself, Enjolras. You've done what you had to do."

Enjolras looks away. He cannot stare at Grantaire's eyes and find himself reflected there.

"I've brought death to people who only deserved life, I've-"

Grantaire leans down, nuzzles Enjolras' cheek with his nose. "Look at me," he whispers.

Enjolras can't bring himself to. "What am I supposed to do, Grantaire?" It's half a question and half a sob and Enjolras hates that he is falling apart but does not know how to stop it. "If it's you one day, if they catch you and I have to stand there, what do you expect me to do, I can't just-"

"Yes, you can. And you must. If that happens, I will give you a reason and you will pull the trigger." A wicked grin stretches its way across his face. "Maybe I'll grope you. It's really not a bad way to die, considering," Grantaire says with a shrug, like it's easy. Maybe it is—Enjolras has not spared him any detail of the things he's seen and done. It will make Grantaire more careful and it might be enough to make him leave. Enjolras hopes it will be—Grantaire does not deserve to die here, like this. It is not fair to think this and he knows it - not when he knows none of the dead deserved it - but he cannot stop the thought from forming.

"You expect me to-"

"I expect you to give me a clean death, Enjolras," he says simply. "And what you do is too important. I am not worth losing a war over. And I am certainly not worth your life."

"But you are," Enjolras whispers. He wants to scream it, shout it from rooftops and let the world know. He is in love with Grantaire and Grantaire is in love with him and they are in love and it's _brilliant_. Even here, in Nazi Germany, it's brilliant.

This is what he knows at this moment—he loves Grantaire and Grantaire is not safe. This is what forces him to turn his head, to finally look at Grantaire's bright blue eyes and to speak once more. "Ask me," he urges—begs, really. "Ask me and I'll go away with you, leave all of this behind. You will be safe and you will be alive. There are places the war has not touched, we could be happy, we could be-"

"There is this poem," Grantaire interrupts. "I don't remember how it begins but I know how it ends. Would you like to hear it?"

Enjolras frowns—he doesn't know what he'd been expecting from Grantaire but this wasn't it. "I don't-"

"I'll take that as 'yes, Grantaire, please tell me the nice poem'." He takes a deep breath. "This inconstancy is such as thou too shalt adore." Another pause, in the form of a kiss pressed to Enjolras' lips. "I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honour more."

Enjolras lets a sob escape his lips before he can stop it. He is falling apart and he is failing and he does not know if one day he'll be able to live without Grantaire there. "You could die, you could-"

"People die everyday. They deserve life just as much as me, Enjolras." He wipes away a tear on Enjolras' cheek. "Many people are alive because of you. And more will be once this war is over. We can move anywhere you want when that happens. I've always been rather partial to Australia, of course, but I'm open to other options."

Enjolras smiles, reaching up to tug carefully at Grantaire's hair. "Australia?"

"I've always had a fondness for kangaroos. They're just so happy, bless their bouncy little souls. We could get one, dress it up in little butler outfits."

Enjolras laughs, though it feels hollow to his own ears. "You say the stupidest things of anyone I have ever met."

"You flatterer." He pouts. "I bet you say that to all the boys."

"Not really, just you." When Grantaire pout turns into a smile, he adds, "So, we're moving to Australia once it's over?"

"Well, only after I've punched Hitler, of course," Grantaire says with a chuckle.

"You want to punch Hitler?"

"Everyone needs a hobby," Grantaire says sternly. "But yeah, Australia." He frowns thoughtfully. "Or maybe New York. I've always wanted to see the Statue of Liberty."

"We could always move to Australia and go to New York for your birthday," Enjolras suggests.

Grantaire's smile is all the answer he needs.

Once Grantaire has fallen asleep still using Enjolras as a human pillow, Enjolras finds himself praying silently to a God he can no longer believe in for the first time in many years.

Months later, Grantaire leaves because of Hitler. Enjolras supposes that anything that happens now is because of Hitler but this entire chain of events is set in motion because he has to meet Hitler. It's funny, but Hitler isn't anything like Enjolras was expecting—he remembers a man larger than life but Hitler is small and awkward and hunched and Enjolras would not look twice at him if he saw him on a street corner. For a moment, the tight leash he has always put on his emotions threatens to slip, along with the carefully constructed mask he puts on every time he leaves the house.

He could do it. It would be so easy, too easy, to just reach for his gun and shoot Hitler. Enjolras wants to do it, Enjolras aches to do it but what would it accomplish? Hitler would die, yes, but Enjolras does not fool himself into believing that the war would end along with him. Hitler would die and someone else would take over and Enjolras' cover would be blown. They would search his house, arrest Éponine and find Grantaire. And Grantaire must not be found. Grantaire must stay alive and happy and safe in their bed.

It's the thought of Grantaire that makes him drop the half-formed plan, it's what prods him to move forward and take the Führer's hand. He hopes Hitler can feel it, somehow; that this is the hand that Enjolras had used that morning to take Grantaire apart. But it's more than that, and he hopes Hitler can feel that, too. It's the way Grantaire has written himself into the bones beneath the skin of Enjolras' body; it's the way he is in Enjolras' blood, flowing steady and strong through his veins; it's the way Enjolras licks his lips and tastes only Grantaire; and it's the way he breathes in and smells only his shampoo on Grantaire's hair, even though they are miles apart. This is how he keeps his sanity, then.

It's enough then but it is not enough later, when he scrubs his hand until it bleeds. This is how Grantaire finds him, clutching his bleeding hand as he sits helplessly on the bathroom floor, staring blankly at the empty wall.

It's Grantaire who bandages his hand and carries him to bed, climbing in beside them. It's Grantaire who listens as Enjolras' whispers, mixed with his broken sobs, fill the night.

It's Grantaire who tries to push him out of bed when they hear the sirens, signaling for air strikes.

It's Grantaire who he clings to, refusing to go. Their basement is not deep enough to be used as a shelter, staying here is not safe. Enjolras does not care. He has lost so much already, he will not lose Grantaire too. This is what he tells him.

"Enjolras, you _idiot_," Grantaire hisses. "What the fuck are you going to do against bombs? Go away."

Enjolras will not budge. He cannot function without Grantaire; sometimes he wonders if he can even breathe without him there. If the bombs hit them, then it will be over and it will be over quickly. Hitler will never touch Grantaire and Enjolras will never have to witness it.

Grantaire curses him under his breath the entire night, but when the sirens stop they are alive and they are safe. Enjolras isn't sure that's a good thing, anymore.

He does not know it yet, but this the last night he spends with Grantaire.

He will leave in the morning, on assignment to Dachau as a reward for _good service_. He will think of nothing but Grantaire while he's there—Grantaire who is safe and alive and who will put Enjolras back together once he gets back, no matter how broken he is.

He does not know yet that Grantaire will not be there.

But he will find out. He will come home, tired and broken and anything but okay and find no trace of Grantaire except for a piece of white paper left on top of his bed.

_Out to punch Hitler._

_Back in a few_

_- R_

He will not have a chance to say goodbye, to once again press promises he hopes he will be able to keep once the war is over into the crook of Grantaire's neck. .

There will be nothing left of Grantaire in that house—no clothes, no pictures, nothing that has been altered by his presence there. The memories he will leave behind, along with the gaping wound in Enjolras' chest, are the only proof he was ever there at all.

He is thirty and he sees Grantaire one last time.

He has made it through the long months after Grantaire left, though he does not know how. He walks and talks and breathes and smiles as if through a dream or a haze, as if those are things happening to someone else and he cannot feel them at all.

He throws himself into his job harder than ever before—he is a mirror, reflecting every single bit of information back to the Allies, uncritically and and indiscriminately. It does not matter—Grantaire is out there and Grantaire is in danger and that is all he needs to know. They should have left when they had the chance—Grantaire would be angry but he would be alive and they would be safe. But they did not and all that is left is the bitter taste of regret in his mouth. There is talk of atomic bombs, carrying inside them the power to burn cities to the ground in a matter of seconds. He does not care about the innocent anymore—anything, everything that will stop the war and make sure Hitler loses is welcomed, embraced with open arms.

He is past grieving, past caring, past worrying—he does things that would've made his stomach turn months ago and feels nothing. This is what he must do, nothing matters but his cover. Years after the war is over, once his skins sags with old age and his golden hair turns to gray, he will wake up screaming and sobbing and Éponine will not be there to hold him through it like she does now. But for now, all that matters is stopping Hitler and stopping the war so Grantaire can be safe and Enjolras tells himself that his sins are justified.

He does not tell Éponine all that he's done—he would have told Grantaire, of course, but there is no point in telling Éponine. She has enough nightmares of her own and does not need any more. She starts sleeping in Enjolras' bed again, but her hair is wrong and her smell is wrong and her body is wrong and her breathing is wrong and Enjolras feels tired down to his bones.

He fears the moment he will look across a concentration camp and see Grantaire's face staring back at him—it will be the last time he will ever see Grantaire. He also welcomes that moment, however—it will be the last time either of them will ever see anything.

And then he sees Grantaire, though not quite in the way he was expecting.

He is out in Berlin with Éponine when it happens. It's the fact that it's Berlin that gets to him later. Berlin is supposed to be safe. Maybe not from the bombs and not from the war - these are nothing but a welcomed distraction at this point - but from himself and the things he's had to do. Most importantly, it's supposed to be safe from the ghost of Grantaire's death.

Éponine's saying something about dinner when he hears it. The distant sound of shuffling feet. He's heard that sound before but not here, not in Berlin, not where it's supposed to be safe and he does not have to face his worst fears.

Yet, there it is. Hundreds, maybe thousands of prisoners, some being marched from one camp to another, others recently caught and having no idea of what awaits them once the journey is over, if they are still alive to see it. The Nazis have started to call them death marches, with wide grins plastered on their faces, and it is an appropriate name. They are weak and they are ill and they are starved—-most do not survive the trip. He grabs Éponine's hand, hoping today is not be the day he sees Grantaire.

But it is.

He's in the middle of the crowd, hidden between hundreds of starving faces but Enjolras would recognize the mop of dark hair on his head and the bright blue eyes hidden beneath it anywhere. He is so thin and his face is so bruised and he's still the most beautiful thing Enjolras has ever seen.

Around them, the German crowds are silent. It's a funny thing, to look at their faces. Enjolras will not look now, refusing to look away from Grantaire. But he knows what he would find if he were to face them. Some would be proud. Others would be embarrassed, shame and guilt mingling on their faces. Most would be silent, unwilling or unable to comprehend what is happening in front of them. This is their work too; if nothing else, this is their legacy. They have stood by and let this happen and Enjolras hopes there will be no forgiveness for them, either.

The crowds do not matter. The war does not matter. The world does not matter. Nothing else matters but the blue eyes the colour of the morning sky staring back at him. Grantaire is not afraid and Enjolras will always remember that.

A clean death, he had asked once upon a time and Enjolras can give him that, if he cannot give him life. He had never wanted it to end like this—all that he had ever wanted had been to keep Grantaire safe and happy, but that is not a choice now. There are too many guards, too many people watching and even if Enjolras were to kill them all they would never make it out of Berlin alive. He doubts they would even make it out of this street.

It does not matter—there is a gun against the small of his back and there is enough ammunition in it to get the job done. Already he knows how many bullets he will need.

The armband on his right arm will let him walk through the prisoners with no questions asked. The prisoners lives are not their own anymore—they are the Nazi's now, and they can do whatever they want with it. The soldiers guarding them will stare at Enjolras with mirth in their eyes and laughter in their mouths waiting for a good show.

And he will give them one they will never forget. He will reach for Grantaire one last time, take Grantaire's hands in one hand and tilt his chin up with the other. He will whisper "I love you," one last time before bringing their lips together. And then, with their lips still pressed together and without opening his eyes, he will pull the trigger—he will pull the trigger twice.

Once for Grantaire.

Once for himself.

It will be easy, so easy. It will all be over so soon. And Enjolras is _so _tired.

Except Grantaire is mouthing something. Enjolras doesn't know what it is at first—and then he does. The same damn poem, whispered in a dark room a lifetime ago, when Grantaire was still whole and safe.

_How could I love thee, dear, loved I not honour more. _

He knows what Grantaire is silently saying, what Grantaire is asking. Enjolras would've cared, long ago, but it's not enough, not anymore.

It's enough to stop him in his tracks, though. Not too long, just for a second, but enough. Enough to notice that Éponine's hand has slipped out of his. Enough to notice that she's the one making her way through the ranks of dying prisoners. Enough that someone has seen what is happening, has put a steadying hand on Enjolras' arm. He is an SS officer and his wife is diving into a sea of Jews. This is what they know. Another hand comes clamping down on his other arm, and Enjolras is trapped.

He does not remember fully what happens next—he supposes Éponine must have reached Grantaire, and he remembers a whip coming down five times for Grantaire and once straight for Éponine's face, but the memories are jumbled together, seen as if through a haze and he cannot make any sense of it

He knows that after the first crack of the whip across Grantaire's face the hands keeping him in place leave his arms. One wraps itself around his stomach. The other goes straight to his mouth. He must reach Grantaire and he cannot move, he must talk to him and he cannot speak.

Someone speaks for him, then. A man around Enjolras' age, with dark hair almost messy enough to rival Grantaire's and warm brown eyes. He is German and that should mean he is safe, but his words are too dangerous. "_Monsters_," he shouts. "You are all monsters, all of you, with the whips and the guns and all of you too, standing there, how can you just stare and watch while-"

A gunshot, a flash of red and he falls to floor. On Hitler's orders, German blood is not to be spilled, though Enjolras thinks this one will be easily forgiven.

He does not care about the man, now. His life does not matter, doesn't even register. What matters is that someone's grabbed Éponine and someone's grabbing him and there is nothing he can do, apart from staring as Grantaire walks out of his life for the last time.

He does not get to say goodbye, or "I love you", or kiss him, or hold him in his arms one last time. He does not have the comfort of Grantaire's warm hand in his or of their breaths mingling together. This will be the last image he has of Grantaire—broken and dying and yet unafraid, walking slowly towards a fate worse than death, eyes never leaving Enjolras'.

A man with a soft face and sandy blond hair speaks later, once they are gone and all that's left is a bloodied body on the ground. "Courfeyrac has always been too kind for his own good," he says and there is no trace of tears in his voice, but it sounds just as hollow as Enjolras' had the day Grantaire left.

Enjolras takes Éponine home and neither of them speak. There is no time for speech—the SS will come to the house and they must not find anything, no sign of what both of them have been doing.

They collapse on her bed later that night. It is the first time he ever sees her cry—and also the last. He forgets sometimes, that Grantaire had been her friend first, but he knows it now with a painful clarity. The SS have not come for her yet, but they will. Only Enjolras' rank has stopped them so far, but he does not fool himself into believing it will stop them forever. She is the wife of an SS officer and she has hugged a Jew in front of half the city. Enjolras' cover may be spared, with the right maneuvering, but hers is over and they both know it. She could run, but she would be caught and she deserves better than to be tortured for information she will never share.

"We both know there's only one way, Enjolras," she whispers and her voice sounds sure.

"You want me to kill you," Enjolras says flatly.

"They can't hurt me if I'm dead. You've seen what they do to traitors, Enjolras." There is a moment, a pause where she might have added 'you've done it too, for the sake of your cover' but does not. Enjolras is thankful for it. "At best, they will be sure that I married you only to spy on you and I will be tortured. Even if they cannot prove it, you will lose all that you've worked to build on the SS. At worst, they will think we are both spies and we will both be tortured. Kill me," she whispers, and for the first time in a very long time she sounds happy. "Kill me and you will have punished a traitor and proved your loyalty once and for all. Fake some documents, if you must, of information that I might have been passing. I would not mind dying a hero."

"You will always die a hero," he tells her. "Whether it's today or a hundred years from now."

"Just wait until I'm asleep." She tucks her head in the crook of his neck and falls asleep _so _quickly.

Years later, once the war is over, he will always think this is his last real act of kindness.

After her funeral, he finds out that the man who'd stopped him from going to Grantaire that day had been working for Lamarque; a bodyguard hired just to make sure that Enjolras is safe and does not blow his cover. Lamarque must have known too much, because she always does, and right now Enjolras does not care.

He does not kill Lamarque, because she is too important for the Allies and Éponine will not die for nothing.

But he kills the man.

He tells Enjolras he has two daughters and his name is Bahorel. Enjolras does not care and pulls the trigger.

He feels nothing at all.

He is thirty-one and the war is over. He does not care.

He keeps his cover. He does what he must. It does not matter.

He finds out which concentration camp Grantaire was taken to. He isn't there anymore. He thinks that's a good thing, in the end. Grantaire did not have to suffer that much, then. He only wishes he could've seen him one last time, but there were too many watchful eyes on him, even after Éponine's death.

He is told Allied troops are landing on Normandy and that he must leave Germany. Lamarque says it will not be safe for him, that the SS uniform he wears sets him apart from everyone else and they will not believe him if he says he is a spy. He does not care for his death, but they will need his help identifying Nazis, once the war is over.

He bows his head and moves to London, vows never to return to Germany again.

He sits in front of the radio, unmoving, as reports of Germany's surrender spread fast through Europe. This is what he's been fighting for, this has been his life's work and this is the reason he's lost Grantaire and put a gun to Éponine's head while she slept beside him. It would not have happened without him, they tell him. And yet, there are whispers in the air, half-spoken truths hiding in everything that he hears, or maybe he's just gotten good at hearing the things people will not say. They have opened the camps and that is a good thing but there has also been death. Thousands of children and old men slaughtered in their beds by the liberating armies and if half the rumours are true millions of women have been raped during their march upon Berlin.

_It would not have happened without him._

They tell him Hitler is dead and he thinks it's a pity that Grantaire never got to punch him.

He stares blankly as atomic bombs hit Japan. This is who and what he has been fighting for, this is his legacy. He has helped stop the Nazis but what else has he helped unleash upon the world?

_It would not have happened without him._

Millions of people dead in concentration camps in Germany and millions of people dead across Japan in a matter of seconds. He wonders if there is a difference in the end, if these actions will be excused because the Allies won the war.

He finds he doesn't much care, either way.

_It would not have happened without him._

It's over and everyone he's ever cared for is gone and everything he's fought for is a lie.

_It would not have happened without him._

He does not speak after this day. There is no point anymore.

He is thirty-two and he is a murderer.

He has been one for a very long time, but this time it's different somehow.

He does not speak and he does not attend the Nuremberg trials. People who should not walk free do so.

He breaks his own vow and returns to Germany. It's easy to find them. It's easier to kill them.

Some of them beg. Others bargain. Most are silent.

If someone sees him, no one says anything. It makes sense—the Germans spent over a decade perfecting the art of looking the other way; he did not expect them to abandon it now.

He moves to Australia once he's done. He looks for Grantaire one last time on some delirious hope that he will have survived the camps and be somewhere in Sydney enjoying the sun as he waits for Enjolras to come to him

They tell him there is no one by that name. Enjolras did not expect otherwise. He abandons his own name and takes Grantaire's instead. It makes him feel better, somehow.

He is thirty-five and he is in New York.

It has been six years since he last saw Grantaire, seven since he last held him.

He's always heard it gets easier with time, the grief of losing the person you loved. He's not that surprised to find that it's just another lie he's been told.

He misses Grantaire with every breath he takes, with every sounds he hears, with every touch he feels, with every sight he sees, with every food he tastes. He did not know he could miss someone like this, with this neverending ache in his bones and his skin and his blood that makes him want to tear open his chest and rip out his heart so that it will stop hurting, if only for a while.

He is not okay, and he does not fool himself into thinking he will ever be. But maybe that is what being okay is, in its own way.

For now it doesn't matter. Now, all that matters is that today would have been Grantaire's birthday and he had wanted to spend it on New York, staring up the Statue of Liberty. Enjolras cannot give him that for he cannot give him life, but he can take his place, stand here for both of them. He wishes he still believed in God and in Heaven, so that he could let himself hope that wherever Grantaire is, he is watching and smiling down at him.

He has come every year, for Grantaire's birthday, and he will continue to do so until the day he dies.

He had searched desperately for a dark mop of hair the first year he came, but found none. He gave up after that—it only made it harder, more painful, having to accept once again that Grantaire is dead.

He has not looked again since that day.

He will not look again after today.

Because there is something in the air, some crackling tension he does not understand and will not be able to explain later. He does not know what makes him move, what makes him turn around. All that he knows is that he does and that's how he sees it, standing less than ten feet in front of him.

A mess of dark curls.

And it cannot be, it _can't_, Grantaire is dead and gone forever and Enjolras has mourned him for six years and cannot do it all over again, cannot allow himself to hope only to be confronted by the cruel reality once more.

And yet.

There is something about his hair, something about his shoulders.

But it _can't _be him, Enjolras can't let himself believe it is him.

And yet.

Those curls. Those shoulders.

The man turns around.

A flash of bright blue eyes, the colour of the morning sky.

Enjolras falls to his knees.

Grantaire is on him immediately, hands absolutely everywhere; on Enjolras' face, on Enjolras' hair, on Enjolras' back, on Enjolras' chest, on Enjolras' hands. It's him and he's alive and he's whole and he's safe and he's _here_.

"Grantaire," he tries to say and his voice breaks from disuse and it does not matter because Grantaire is here and Grantaire is alive and Enjolras will say his name as many times as he needs to until he gets it right. Will go on saying it after that, just because he can. "_GrantaireGrantaireGrantaire_."

"You idiot," Grantaire says and his voice is just as broken as Enjolras'. "I thought you were dead, I thought-"

"You thought I was dead?" Words are hard, but Enjolras makes himself speak. Grantaire deserves everything Enjolras can give him and his words are just the beginning. "You weren't in Dachau, you weren't in Australia-"

"Not Dachau." Grantaire shakes his head slowly."There were two different groups the last time we met. The other group was headed there, not mine."

Grantaire's hands are in his and they are so warm.

"And Australia?"

Grantaire pauses and leans his forehead against Enjolras'. There are tears in his eyes and Enjolras never wants him to cry again but right now it doesn't matter because he's alive. He's alive, he is so so alive and it's _brilliant_. "They told me you were dead. They told me you were _dead_. There was nothing in Australia for me, Enjolras."

It makes sense, Enjolras supposes. Grantaire was a Jewish prisoner at a concentration camp and Enjolras was a spy masquerading as an SS officer. He did all that he had to do to keep his cover back then and rumours of his death have probably been spread for his own safety.

He should be mad, should be fuming that they've lost all these years.

And yet.

Grantaire is alive and he is here and he does not care one bit.

He doesn't fool himself into believing that everything will be okay now just because Grantaire is alive. He is not okay and has not been for a very long time. The war broke something inside him that he knows will never be fixed and Grantaire has his own scars to deal with too.

But he also remembers a cold night in Berlin, about a lifetime ago, when he'd thought he would not mind dying for Grantaire's eyes. Enjolras' death will not be required or welcomed now and that is something he will always be grateful for. This is why it's so easy, despite everything. He would not have minded dying for Grantaire's eyes back then and he will not mind living for them now.


End file.
